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Exhuman musings

So, I've been wondering for a while now... do I count as an exhuman? A little background, I originally died during the fall, and when an opportunity arrived to get an actual body again I decided to go with something decidedly non-human, non-earthly even. I went with a scurrier and while I know that's a standard morph that technicians all over the system use, it still uses an alien lifeform as a base, and it's what's been going on in my head that troubles me.

More and more, I've stopped seeing myself as human. I look at the muzzle and pupil-less eyes in the mirror, and it's natural. As it should be. I've adapted to the morph's odd dietary and instinctual habits, the feel of an additional set of limbs, the fur covering my body, the change in scale, all as if I'd lived it my entire life. Full integration into a new morph.

The trouble only gets worse on the occasions where I need to use a more human morph. Egocasting to meetings and such where they may not want to splurge on an expensive morph I'll only use for a couple days. I feel too tall, like I could topple over at any moment. I feel cold, and the clothes on my bare skin are a constant bother on my senses. I eat and drink normal food and everything tastes and smells off. More than anything, I feel like a stranger in something else's skin. Like I don't belong, and never will.

I have no desire to go back to being human. I like my new morph, and I hate the way my old one makes me feel. I suppose in the most basic sense of the term, I would classify myself as exhuman, but I find myself hesitant to actually admit it except for anonymously online. I know there's a stigma around the label, one of people that feel the need to prove their superiority over the "lesser" species, or forcibly convert others. However, doing either of these seems pointless and a waste of time. Sure, I feel like my new body is a definite improvement over my old one, but it doesn't hurt me to have all these humans around and I have far better things to do with my time than get into a pissing contest over morph superiority.

I don't know if there's a point to all this rambling, but it's just been something I needed to get off my chest.

That's not being exhuman, that's just normal morph habitualization. Each morph comes with brain structures, or the cyberbrain emulation of it, that match the sensorimotoric makeup of that morph, their internal body self-image. You may have heard about that as the cortical homunculus. The thing is, those brain structures aren't all that there's to it; our self-image is rooted deeper than the brain mapping of our body. In fact, shortly after neuropsychology was developed, but even long before modern brain mapping, scientists discovered a whole plethora of disorders that had to do with both the homunculus itself not matching the body, or those deeper-rooted systems, which we're only starting to crack these days, not matching the homunculus. Resleeving technology has added a few disorders of its own; morph mal-acclimatization syndrome, integration disorder, auto-alienation syndrome, the list goes on. I see no reason to suspect that you suffer from any of these.

While remote diagnoses, especially ones based on such a short description as you have given, are not one bit reliable, at first glance I'd say that you simply have grown accustomed to your new morph. Or, to say it in the lingo of those who take the big credits per hour, your deeper self-image systems have acclimatized to your morph's cortical homunculus. You *might* have a light case of integration calcification (Who comes up with these stupid names???) if you don't feel proper adaptation to humanoid morphs within 72 hours, but even that isn't anything to worry about.

If you wanna cast over, I can try to get my hands on a scurrier morph, then we can probe your neuropatterns a bit deeper. Or, if you have trustworthy people for it, I can cast over to yours; I'd need access to an unfettered ego bridge, though, I'm not accredited with the Consortium, so your standard Inner Sphere machines wouldn't let me diagnose you. Not to forget that I'd need crash space and food.

Now, if you *did* have a categorical superiority complex over transhumanity in general, and the all-overriding, borderline psychotic need to rid yourself in mind and body from similarities with transhumans, and of course the stereotypical inability to empathize with other individuals, *that* would make you exhuman.

Now, if you *did* have a categorical superiority complex over transhumanity in general, and the all-overriding, borderline psychotic need to rid yourself in mind and body from similarities with transhumans, and of course the stereotypical inability to empathize with other individuals, *that* would make you exhuman.

Umm, what about someone having the first, and third, of those.
There is this guy I have worked with. He is a gatecrasher by career path.
Has a pair of morphs he uses, depending on what kind of planet they plan to send him to.
A seriously tricked out Bio, either Exalt or Olympian, I never found out which. For use on worlds with plant life and atmosphere, and an even more tricked out Slitheroid for the more hostile environments.
He has an ego so big, that I can't work out how it fits through the gate.
He shows a lack of empathy for anyone he has not designated as one of 'his people'.
He also goes in for psychosurgery to 'lose the parts I don't want, and get the parts I want.' Although he does keep a lot of human traits, including the general bias toward the wellbeing of the species.

Now, if you *did* have a categorical superiority complex over transhumanity in general, and the all-overriding, borderline psychotic need to rid yourself in mind and body from similarities with transhumans, and of course the stereotypical inability to empathize with other individuals, *that* would make you exhuman.

Umm, what about someone having the first, and third, of those.
[...]
He also goes in for psychosurgery to 'lose the parts I don't want, and get the parts I want.' Although he does keep a lot of human traits, including the general bias toward the wellbeing of the species.

Exhuman or not?

I'd say not, and that he's just an example of someone failing at being a nice person. After all, he doesn't quite fit the "ex" part in "exhuman", no matter whether you want to interpret that as "out of / emerged from" or "formerly / not anymore", and he seems to consider himself to be a part of humankind, not apart from. Shame for waging a war on his humanity, though.
Again, I don't like to give a diagnosis without interaction, but if what you say is accurate and succinct, he may be one bad memetic influence away from becoming full-blown exhuman. That also means that so far, he has managed to stay away from crossing that line.

Seriously, though, people, this really isn't a question of morphs. I'm surrounded by people who have organs (the instrument, not the body filling) sticking out of their backs, who have more genitals than fingers, whose fingers *are* genitals, people with hooves (well, those were a mistake to try to make work in micro-g) and horns, there's even a wall made of meat and metal on one of our ships (whose name "The Wailing Wall" does a great disservice to representing its capability as an orchestra, as long as the right group of people sleeves into it). None of the people I know would even remotely fit the image of an exhuman. We're pushing the envelope of physical and mental possibilities, but our humanity is sacrosanct.

There you have it, Urthdigger and Kremlin: A bona fide exhuman
What the hell is an exhuman doing in The Eye? Whichever proxy recruited them, I'd like them to stay as far away from my server as possible, thank you very much.

Well, now that we're apparently riding down this zero-friction slope already, I'd like to bring up a few more similarly disturbing things.
Exhumans seem to be a bizarre combination of an inferiority and superiority complex; being transhuman in origin, they consider themselves inferior to whatever their idealized baseline being may be, and superior for aspiring towards becoming that being. I'd like to forward the hypothesis that that's not just a vernacular statement, but might reasonably be an actual diagnosis. To test it, I'd like to create psychograms of a bunch of their ilk. If I'm right, that'd imply two things: That exhumanity can be healed, and that an exhuman will constantly shift their ideal, as the nature of their sickness is to idealize something that is different from themselves. For that matter, maybe there's Ultimates that are proto-exhumans, being attracted to that cult for their ethos of needful yet unachievable self-perfection?
If there is indeed a consistent set of psychogram patterns among exhumans, it would also be interesting to create an overlay of them, and bake them into petals; or, more safely, into simulspace adventure morphs. Wouldn't want some petal burn-out to contract exhumanity, now would we...
Well, I'm not gonna start hunting down exhumans to rip their stacks. But let's say hypothetically that someone were to hand me a baggy of bloody stacks and tell me that they're from exhumans, I'd be hard-pressed to resist analyzing them. Whether that's ethical or not, now that's the dicey question. They don't wanna be part of transhumanity, so who am I to deny them their non-human status? On the other hand, what if I'm right, and they've fallen to a sickness? Wouldn't I then even doubly so obligated to scan those stacks, and instantiate cured copies? Or is me considering them sick or cured just my own projection? Well, of course it is, but the question is who agrees with that assessment. The ethics of non-consensual therapeutic psychosurgery have become *weird* ever since I've started operating outside of ol' Earth's hospitals, and frankly I'm not one bit happy that they seem to boil down to shows of hands these days.
For that matter, anyone here who'd trust me to try and give them exhumanity, then make it go away again?

There you have it, Urthdigger and Kremlin: A bona fide exhuman
What the hell is an exhuman doing in The Eye? Whichever proxy recruited them, I'd like them to stay as far away from my server as possible, thank you very much.

Well, now that we're apparently riding down this zero-friction slope already, I'd like to bring up a few more similarly disturbing things.
Exhumans seem to be a bizarre combination of an inferiority and superiority complex; being transhuman in origin, they consider themselves inferior to whatever their idealized baseline being may be, and superior for aspiring towards becoming that being. I'd like to forward the hypothesis that that's not just a vernacular statement, but might reasonably be an actual diagnosis. To test it, I'd like to create psychograms of a bunch of their ilk. If I'm right, that'd imply two things: That exhumanity can be healed, and that an exhuman will constantly shift their ideal, as the nature of their sickness is to idealize something that is different from themselves. For that matter, maybe there's Ultimates that are proto-exhumans, being attracted to that cult for their ethos of needful yet unachievable self-perfection?
If there is indeed a consistent set of psychogram patterns among exhumans, it would also be interesting to create an overlay of them, and bake them into petals; or, more safely, into simulspace adventure morphs. Wouldn't want some petal burn-out to contract exhumanity, now would we...
Well, I'm not gonna start hunting down exhumans to rip their stacks. But let's say hypothetically that someone were to hand me a baggy of bloody stacks and tell me that they're from exhumans, I'd be hard-pressed to resist analyzing them. Whether that's ethical or not, now that's the dicey question. They don't wanna be part of transhumanity, so who am I to deny them their non-human status? On the other hand, what if I'm right, and they've fallen to a sickness? Wouldn't I then even doubly so obligated to scan those stacks, and instantiate cured copies? Or is me considering them sick or cured just my own projection? Well, of course it is, but the question is who agrees with that assessment. The ethics of non-consensual therapeutic psychosurgery have become *weird* ever since I've started operating outside of ol' Earth's hospitals, and frankly I'm not one bit happy that they seem to boil down to shows of hands these days.
For that matter, anyone here who'd trust me to try and give them exhumanity, then make it go away again?

Apologies for the delay, had some... distractions to take care of on my end. I had not expected this topic to take such a turn. I suppose I misunderstood things a little in my original musings: I had taken the primary definition of an exhuman to be one who no longer declares themselves human. Ex-human as one would be an ex-husband. I'm starting to realize that the disdain and hostility towards humanity may not be a mostly accurate stereotype, but a core part of the definition.

As for the exhuman's manifesto, I'm going to have to disagree here. I took a path that I felt was best for me, but I do not feel that transhumanity as a whole is weak. As individuals? Perhaps. But they seem to work together far better than most exhuman reports I've seen. There's something lost in the blind pursuit of personal perfection above all else. Maybe I'll go close to that one of these days. Push the things I like about my morph further and further, experiment even more than I do already with augmentations... but even should I only view them as pets, I feel there will always be a part of me that's on the side of these smoothskins. I'm not sure what that makes me, but it's apparently not exhuman.

Now, as to the topic of potentially curing exhumans, I would be interested to see what results you get. I won't keep my hopes up though. The problem I see is that, if they have already hit the point of going full exhuman, I'd wonder if there's anything worth salvaging, especially if these complexes are so core to who they are.

One of the things to note is that exhuman as a word carries strongly anti-human/anti-transhuman connotations.

For instance, I consider myself a posthuman; I favor the Remade, which is an imitation human but far superior in most ways. However, I am still a former human and I do not choose to abandon ties and relationships with humanity. Despite bringing myself past the threshold of what humanity would have been with the basic morph and augmentations added after the fact, I retain a similar philosophy and similar ideology to what I had before, and it is practicality, rather than an ethos, that led me to augmentation.

Apologies for the delay, had some... distractions to take care of on my end. I had not expected this topic to take such a turn. I suppose I misunderstood things a little in my original musings: I had taken the primary definition of an exhuman to be one who no longer declares themselves human. Ex-human as one would be an ex-husband. I'm starting to realize that the disdain and hostility towards humanity may not be a mostly accurate stereotype, but a core part of the definition.

As for the exhuman's manifesto, I'm going to have to disagree here. I took a path that I felt was best for me, but I do not feel that transhumanity as a whole is weak. As individuals? Perhaps. But they seem to work together far better than most exhuman reports I've seen. There's something lost in the blind pursuit of personal perfection above all else. Maybe I'll go close to that one of these days. Push the things I like about my morph further and further, experiment even more than I do already with augmentations... but even should I only view them as pets, I feel there will always be a part of me that's on the side of these smoothskins. I'm not sure what that makes me, but it's apparently not exhuman.

Now, as to the topic of potentially curing exhumans, I would be interested to see what results you get. I won't keep my hopes up though. The problem I see is that, if they have already hit the point of going full exhuman, I'd wonder if there's anything worth salvaging, especially if these complexes are so core to who they are.

It is damn a shame that I could replace the word: "EXHUMAN" with "ULTIMATE" and then sign this with my both hands. But it accidentally reinforces point I was going to make after reading your previous posts. Exhumans and Ultimates in some aspects can both be compared to religious cults.
Ultimates are akin to 20th century mainstream religion with their power in numbers, smug sense of superiority and enough good people among them to maintain somewhat positive image. All bound to some image of perfection.
On the other hand Exhumans are like 21st century sects, unrestrained in their voracity, destructive, mostly self-destructive and only sometimes stable enough to survive longer.
All bound to some image of perfection.

It is true that there are many Ultimates who join the ranks of Exhumans. I believe it is because we are so similiar in many aspects.
Bioconservatives try to be the best humans they can be at the same time accepting their limitations.
Ultimates strive to redefine themselves as ideal humans, pushing the limits of what humanity is.
Exhumans strive to redefine themselves as ideal beings, they do not care about their humanity, considering it a thing that is no longer neccesary.

Back to the OP doubts:
Fret not about your alienation to the human standard morphs. It is a normal syndrome for people to develop a high prefference for their SECOND morph. We oldtimers growing with our original bodies were deeply unaware of the boundary between the body and mind, when you make the shift for the first time you sometime discover that what your new body provides meshes better with your ego than the old one. It is amazing and random. Back after the fall I would just recommend a quick visit to a competent psychosurgeon maybe like Baribal here. Or trying to live in human morph for a time longer than few days. If you ever happen to find yourself changing bodies often and for longer periods of time, you will be amazed on how flexible your self-image becomes.
For now I suppose you can support more morphological freedom for TRANShumanity.

—

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Yeah, do not fret my little furry friend. If your posts are honest, then from personal experiences I'd say you're the farthest you could be from it.
Exhumans aren't just beyond human, like our friend here that's formatting his text relatively strangely. It's the idea and mindset that they want to become not human. There are some posthuman clades, like the stewards, that absolutely perfectly able to get along with regular Transhumans. Their mental forms usually deviate more then a regular Transhumans would, let alone their physical forms (fuzzy still qualifies as transhuman under these ideas - lots of people sleeve in different morphs with different body plans (like swarmanoids, star whales to fucking alien plants))- and virtually evergone agrees they're still Transhuman.
Exhuman's, in contrast to regular post-humans, abandon any humanity or manners in the usual sense we know of them. They're considered Exhuman, rather than posthuman, because they're actively against and/or hostile to normal transhumans. (Which is why the "Ex" is there). They're categorised by their obsession with "advancing" their form and mind, utilising experimental technology, both of which are displayed to a greater degree then regular posthumans. That's why we don't see any designs in Exhuman morphs being used regularly yet - they're untested and unperfected designs, often crude due to their all encompassing desire to be more then transhuman - more then "weak".

Ultimates on the other hand, are usually this desire for "strength", but do so in the opposite way to post humans and exhumans, usually. Ultimates seek to perfect the transhuman form - while staying, Transhuman.
Ultimately, the words "Transhuman" and "Posthuman" have nothing to do with an individuals strength or power, at least when they were originally invented. "Transhuman", originally meant something along the lines of "artificially augmented, but still recognizably human". So Remades are therefore Transhuman, human looking morphs, are Transhuman morphs, if they are recognizably "human" (hell, even synth morphs that are recognizably human) are Transhuman. .. though, with how everyone in the solar system can have radically different morphs, "Transhuman" is applied more to the actual Ego rather then morphs these days. Ultimates, through seeking strength by retaining their "humanity" ultimately stay (radically advanced - remember what I said about recognizably "human") Transhuman.
Meanwhile, Posthuman's like the Stewards (and by extension Exhumans), seek strength in forms and Ego configuration, away from what is recognizably "human". They seek strength through their own self induced evolution, change. Rather than seeking strength through "perfecting" the transhuman, like the Ultimates.
TL;DR: Posthumans and Exhumans seek to change their forms and minds for strength, while Ultimates seek to perfect their Transhuman state for strength. Little fuzzy buddy hasn't displayed anything outside of the mental transhuman norm, and in fact his worry of being Exhuman cements him further into the Transhuman psyche profile.

Fuck. No I'm not. I'm doing my best not to be. Most other humans are okay, and some are actually pretty damn awesome. Finding this thread was reassuring, since it looks like there are some extremely strong indicators against me being classifiable as an exhuman.

Maybe I should back up a bit. The entire reason I'm concerned is that I've been getting involuntary urges to lay eggs, build nests out of corpses, and do other ghastly things I would prefer not to describe in too much detail. These are incredibly frightening and seem to get worse the more I try to push them aside. (Yes, I'm an async; yes, I've been evaluated for OCD and have come back negative.)

I feel like indulging the tamer side of this - adding some insect-like features to my morph, perhaps - could help lessen some of these impulses, but I am extremely worried about going too far - whether by directly hurting someone or by scaring the shit out of them and making them think I'm actively about to infect the whole hab.

I'm not actually some kind of ticking exsurgent time-bomb, am I?

- Synapse

(OOC notes in spoiler.)

Spoiler: Highlight to view

Haven't posted in the IC chat before, but I feel like I should probably point out that this is one of several characters I have, and by no means the only character I'm likely to run here.

Maybe I should back up a bit. The entire reason I'm concerned is that I've been getting involuntary urges to lay eggs, build nests out of corpses, and do other ghastly things I would prefer not to describe in too much detail. These are incredibly frightening and seem to get worse the more I try to push them aside. (Yes, I'm an async; yes, I've been evaluated for OCD and have come back negative.)

I feel like indulging the tamer side of this - adding some insect-like features to my morph, perhaps - could help lessen some of these impulses, but I am extremely worried about going too far - whether by directly hurting someone or by scaring the shit out of them and making them think I'm actively about to infect the whole hab.

I'm not actually some kind of ticking exsurgent time-bomb, am I?

A few months ago, I thought those rumors about asyncs were just tall tales and modern legends. And here we are now... I can say with confidence that I've never heard anything about your condition in medical school, so take what I have to say as educated speculation. Since you don't want to indulge in your urges in toto, I'd recommend not to indulge in them in part, either. That would just put you on a slippery slope to normalize going *just* a little step further, and then the next, and the next, and so on. It's unlikely that you would ever find a level at which you will have minimized your urges to a degree that they effectively subside.

As for the time-bomb bit, as I said before, medical literature doesn't even mention you. Maybe doing iconically human things under the influence of tasping may help; maybe it would do the opposite of help. Maybe implanting aversions would help, and maybe it would drive you into a neurotic breakdown. Hell, this is the first case where I'm completely without *any* idea how I'd proceed.

Fuck. No I'm not. I'm doing my best not to be. Most other humans are okay, and some are actually pretty damn awesome. Finding this thread was reassuring, since it looks like there are some extremely strong indicators against me being classifiable as an exhuman.

Maybe I should back up a bit. The entire reason I'm concerned is that I've been getting involuntary urges to lay eggs, build nests out of corpses, and do other ghastly things I would prefer not to describe in too much detail. These are incredibly frightening and seem to get worse the more I try to push them aside. (Yes, I'm an async; yes, I've been evaluated for OCD and have come back negative.)

I feel like indulging the tamer side of this - adding some insect-like features to my morph, perhaps - could help lessen some of these impulses, but I am extremely worried about going too far - whether by directly hurting someone or by scaring the shit out of them and making them think I'm actively about to infect the whole hab.

I'm not actually some kind of ticking exsurgent time-bomb, am I?

OK, lemme say my piece about your urges first - ultimately, you need to search yourself to find if these "alien" urges are what you actually want, or if they're just really strong instincts. Things like - chemical addiction or such for example, you want to drop it, but your ego instinctively decides that it wants the bad chemical against your will. So if these urge's are instinctive, I'd say try to get rid of them as its not something you want. Secondly, I'm gonna be blunt with you. Anything involving Exsurgent virus infection is shit. Anything involving it is basically a black box - we haven't yet been able to determine why or how it does what it does. Ultimately, I can't make you do anything, but I recommend putting contingencies if you think you'll be a danger to others... actually, I recommend quarantine, long and intense diagnose mentioned, contingencies and everything else on anything that even seems like a "possible" Exsurgent infection. Exsurgent infection, is always, shit. Either way, I recommend some introspection and a trusted psychosurgeon.

As a counterpoint... I'd actually argue FOR indulging the tamer aspects of your urges. In my own experience, these urges are like a thirst. The longer you go without sating them, the more and more they build up until you're desperate, losing control of your more rational mind. While some have the will to simply ignore these urges altogether, for most I believe they would either go mad, or give in completely.

The key is go about it with the proper mindset. Treat your body as a child that must be disciplined. Allow it certain benign urges with the understanding that these are all it gets. Granted... your list seems a fair bit more harmful than hiding food, breaking rat necks, or having mating seasons. I'm assuming your morph does not reproduce asexually (and you haven't been mating with others of your kind), so laying eggs should be benign. Making nests should be fine so long as you aren't making the corpses yourself. Try using dummy morphs without an ego if you must.

The most important thing is that whether you're still human or not isn't the most important part. It's whether you're a monster or not. Do not harm anyone with your indulgences and you should be fine. Try to be a good Samaritan if your conscience still needs help. So long as you keep a clearly defined line that you do not cross, it should be fine.

Thanks for the input. I'm hoping nobody here gets disappeared because I posted this, but it looks like that hasn't happened yet.

Baribal wrote:

Since you don't want to indulge in your urges in toto, I'd recommend not to indulge in them in part, either. That would just put you on a slippery slope to normalize going *just* a little step further, and then the next, and the next, and so on. It's unlikely that you would ever find a level at which you will have minimized your urges to a degree that they effectively subside.

This is what I'd been thinking so far. Also doesn't help that scrutiny over my behavior is the last thing I want right now.

Baribal wrote:

Maybe doing iconically human things under the influence of tasping may help; maybe it would do the opposite of help. Maybe implanting aversions would help, and maybe it would drive you into a neurotic breakdown. Hell, this is the first case where I'm completely without *any* idea how I'd proceed.

I know at least one psychosurgeon. This gives me a lead, especially the tasping. I'd been worked on before, though, and no one figured out how to dig up the whole thing. I'll have to report back.

Justanotherheretic wrote:

I recommend putting contingencies if you think you'll be a danger to others... actually, I recommend quarantine, long and intense diagnose mentioned, contingencies and everything else on anything that even seems like a "possible" Exsurgent infection. Exsurgent infection, is always, shit. Either way, I recommend some introspection and a trusted psychosurgeon.

I've gone through a two-month-long quarantine before, and on top of that, I've been like this for years. My current, uh, employer is letting me work on a fairly loose "leash". Right or wrong, they seem to think I'm safe - or at least not dangerous enough that they can't contain me.

Justanotherheretic wrote:

OK, lemme say my piece about your urges first - ultimately, you need to search yourself to find if these "alien" urges are what you actually want, or if they're just really strong instincts. Things like - chemical addiction or such for example, you want to drop it, but your ego instinctively decides that it wants the bad chemical against your will. So if these urge's are instinctive, I'd say try to get rid of them as its not something you want.

They disgust me, and I hate that I have them. That said, at least one psychosurgeon took a look at me and said they couldn't figure out how to... what did he say... "isolate the involved connectomes" to cut them out, without just taking significant chunks of my mind with it. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered that, but that feels like killing myself, and I've already tried that once. (Long story.)

Urthdigger wrote:

As a counterpoint... I'd actually argue FOR indulging the tamer aspects of your urges. In my own experience, these urges are like a thirst. The longer you go without sating them, the more and more they build up until you're desperate, losing control of your more rational mind. While some have the will to simply ignore these urges altogether, for most I believe they would either go mad, or give in completely.

I'm increasingly weighing this as a possibility. I'm feeling like I'm collapsing in on myself already. Good to hear that I'm not completely out of my mind for considering compromising on this.

Urthdigger wrote:

The key is go about it with the proper mindset. Treat your body as a child that must be disciplined. Allow it certain benign urges with the understanding that these are all it gets. Granted... your list seems a fair bit more harmful than hiding food, breaking rat necks, or having mating seasons. I'm assuming your morph does not reproduce asexually (and you haven't been mating with others of your kind), so laying eggs should be benign. Making nests should be fine so long as you aren't making the corpses yourself. Try using dummy morphs without an ego if you must.

To clear things up, I'm sleeved in a pretty standard human-derived morph right now. These urges are anatomically impossible to indulge, unless I go consult with some particularly un-concerned biohacker and get this body completely redesigned from the ground up.

Maybe I should try to find surrogate behaviors, though.

Urthdigger wrote:

The most important thing is that whether you're still human or not isn't the most important part. It's whether you're a monster or not. Do not harm anyone with your indulgences and you should be fine. Try to be a good Samaritan if your conscience still needs help. So long as you keep a clearly defined line that you do not cross, it should be fine.

I hope so. I'm still worried that, if I am going to turn into something horrible, it's going to be without warning and I won't be able to stop. At one point I decided this wasn't an acceptable risk, and tried to remove myself from the situation, but someone else took pains to keep this from working.

Thank you all. I guess I have a lot to consider. Better than having no idea, I guess.

To clear things up, I'm sleeved in a pretty standard human-derived morph right now. These urges are anatomically impossible to indulge, unless I go consult with some particularly un-concerned biohacker and get this body completely redesigned from the ground up.

Maybe I should try to find surrogate behaviors, though.

Considering that you're an async, and this whole behavior complex is almost certainly a result of that, this might be a longshot, but have you considered sleeving into a brain-in-a-jar, and hooking that up to a VR space? I'd still recommend not indulging at all, but if you're committed to going down that route, at least that would be a safely contained option.

That's kind of funny you should mention that. That's more or less what I've decided to do. I found a simulspace that should let me figure out what my instincts are going to tell me to do if I let them run rampant - as well as how hard it should be to contain them halfway through something going wrong.

I must say, I'll be most interested to hear how this goes in a few months. Psychotherapy is a bit of a hobby of mine, and while I shared what works best for me I must admit that this kind of research is a new field. Any and all testimonies on what works to help curb undesired urges would be greatly appreciated.

Back to the topic at hand, I wonder if us... hmm, what's a good term for us... alien transhumans? If we're at an increased risk of sliding into exhuman territory. It is indeed all too easy to stop thinking of oneself as human when your thoughts are filled with urges from an alien entity, whether that's a morph's residual instincts or an alien virus. Seeing other people as "One of us" is a big part of our empathy, it's why eating meat is fine but cannibalism is appalled.

I don't see research into this coming easily however. Most people would understandable be reluctant to admit to having thoughts that even come close to exhuman. Performing experiments on test subjects would be unethical at best. And interviewing exhumans would likely not be very productive, few are sane and even less are safe to be around.

In the spirit of quenching curiosity, I suppose I'll admit some information. I was born with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder, so I've always been different. I was always puzzled at normal human behaviour. I was and still am, puzzled and distressed that a person could hate someone for illogical or strange reasons. For example, racism? Sexism? I can only understand such things from an academic point of view - I simply can't understand a person's ability to do that. Neither can I fully comprehend the human need for extreme power and control *coughcough* PlanetaryConsortium*coughcough*. It's instinctive to me, to help others and be kind. I can only understand other ways of thinking in the academic ways. So, does that, by the more popular definition of the term, make me alien or exhuman? I don't believe so, but this is in the spirit of sharing information, so I find your opinions welcome.

There's an interesting take. I didn't think to go there with it. I guess I know enough autistic people to consider them within the normal range of transhuman variation.

I was pretty close with an autistic girlfriend of mine once. She had kind of a neat take on some things. Otherwise, I guess her muse helped her cover for most of her symptoms. It wasn't like I was digging through her head or anything, so that's all I could really say.

Seeing as she's not on the Eye, though, that's really all I can say about her here. (Well, guess I can't say that with 100% certainty. It'd be news to me if she were.)

Quote:

I was and still am, puzzled and distressed that a person could hate someone for illogical or strange reasons. For example, racism? Sexism? I can only understand such things from an academic point of view - I simply can't understand a person's ability to do that. Neither can I fully comprehend the human need for extreme power and control *coughcough* PlanetaryConsortium*coughcough*. It's instinctive to me, to help others and be kind.

Probably got nothing to worry about there. Most people really ought to be more like that. ...Well, I mean, exhumans would probably say the same thing about their value set, but you know what I mean. I hope.

- Synapse

(OOC below in a spoiler.)

Spoiler: Highlight to view

I haven't entirely decided for sure whether or not this character is autistic, but I definitely am, myself. Still, though, experiences from people on the spectrum are very much a YMMV thing, so take anything I say here with a grain of salt. :v

I am more of a moderate exhuman. I find that the defining qualities of exhuman thought is a strong desire at self improvement and a willingness to critically examine so-called "human" traits to determine whether they are truly necessary. Ultimates blindly cling to their humanity, though I do congratulate their progress given this self-imposed limitation. I'll admit some of my fellows fall into the trap of looking up everything transhumans see as defining "human" features and going out of their way to throw it all out. As discarding traits transhumans find vitally important makes social interaction with transhumanity difficult, many exhumans separate themselves from the general community.

My squirrelly friend, you have nothing to fear. You are not an exhuman, nor should being one disturb you. I am interested in your psychology. I would ask you for a copy of your ego for my experiments in asymmetrical ego merging and psychosurgery. I might be able to develop techniques for making sleeving into scurrier morphs easier as well as gaining other skills. I have found it difficult to find volunteers for this.

As for our async, if you wish to have these traits removed, I can help. I am on the cutting edge of psychosurgical science. I hear asyncs have difficulty when sleeved in infomorph or synthmorphs, so that might slow things down, but I haven't been able to examine an async ego before. I promise not to do anything with your ego or fork you do not consent to, but would appreciate having one for my research.